Differences between revisions 3 and 4

Student Database and Assignment Management Systems

give - assignment submission and automarking system
sms - student database management system


give Manual	give FAQ	sms Manual	sms FAQ	Xmark	VNC

give & sms Installation

give and sms are interconnected. Create give environment and sms database in the class account as follows:

ssh into the class account with X11 forwarding: ssh -Y
- (sms is a tk app that requires X windows )
Run the installation script:
% give-install -new
% ~give/stable/bin/give-install -new
- if ~give/stable/bin is not part of $PATH
% ksh give-install -new
- if your login shell is zsh
% give-install -new YYsN
- if the session is not the same as the system-wide session
The installation perform the following tasks:
- Create $WORK ($HOME/YYsN.work e.g. ~/12s2.work)
- Create give.spec if doesn't exists in
  - $HOME
  - $WORK
  (read about give.spec)
- Create .giverc in $HOME (overrides existing one)
- Create sms database under $WORK (can be postponed)
- Download student enrolment data (read about importing nss data below)
- Add $SMSDB (e.g. ~/YYsN.work/YYsNdb.sms) to $HOME/.giverc
The installation can be paused before sms database is created.
- Create the database by running sms directly:
- % sms ~/YYsN.work/YYsNdb.sms
  - or
- % sms
  - (if $SMSDB is set to the current session)
- Resume the installation with this command:
  % give-install -update
Download student enrollment data
- Add course records
- For combined courses, create the database in the primary class account, add a record for each course.
- Add student records
- Top menu bar: Student → Add Student Records → External Source
- or second menu bar: Add from NSS
  From NSS or From NSS (without classes) The latter is used if swapping student to another class in sms.
If there are classes in NSS, an enum field (tut, lab or tut_lab) will automatically be created in sms after the above downloads. Enter this field when asked for a group field by the installation script. This field is used by give for assignment submissions.
(Read about &subkey and &subgroup)
After installing give, update the environment to the new session:
% . ~/.giverc
and insert the line above to the class account's .profile.
Check the environment variables: $GIVEPERIOD, $WORK, $SMSDB
% echo $GIVEPERIOD

classrun


Manage Assignments `classrun [give\|check\|collect]`	View Marks `?session=YYsS` `classrun [YYsS] sturec`

Usage:

For COMP courses,
% 9999 classrun ...
For other subject area courses,
% ssss9999 classrun ...
where ssss is subject area and 9999 is course number e.g. engg1811, binf1001, seng1031

options:

From the student's account
`classrun -give <assignment> <files>...`	submit assignments, commonly seen in this form: `give <account> <assignment> <files>...`
`classrun -check <assignment>`	check submissions
`classrun -collect <assignment>`	collect marked assignments
`classrun -fetch <assignment>`	fetch most recent submitted files, put them under fetch-<term>-<account>-<assignment>-<time>
`classrun [YYsS] -sturec`	view marks (student)
From the tutor's or class account
`classrun -mark`	mark assignments Xmark Quick Start Guide
`classrun -rsms`	enter marks
From the class account
`classrun -u <studentid>`	be a student, followed by one of the options above

Examples:
- From the student's account
- % 1911 classrun -give simple simple.c diary.txt
  - same as this command: give cs1911 simple simple.c diary.txt
- % 1911 classrun -check simple
- % engg1811 classrun -collect assign1
- % binf1001 classrun 20T3 -sturec
- From the tutor's account
- % seng2011 classrun -rsms
- From the class account
- % classrun -u 1234567 -give simple simple.c diary.txt
- % classrun -u 1234567 -sturec
- % classrun -mark

Note

The course code preceding the command is optional when running classrun from the class account

To avoid invoking the GUI with the sturec option, unset the DISPLAY
- e.g. from the class account
```
DISPLAY=; classrun -u 1234567 -sturec
```
  e.g. from the student account, (if DISPLAY is set)
```
DISPLAY=; 1911 classrun -sturec
```
To give tutors access to -mark and -rsms, add their account names to $WORK/give.spec under the &authorisation directive. e.g.
- ```
&authorisation
z7654321 MARK RSMS
z1234567 MARK RSMS
cs9999 MARK RSMS
&end
```
Use VNC or VLAB to run Xmark and sms on your personal computer. These applications run slow using X-windows (Xming etc)

classrun logs

To view the classrun commands used by the students

priv classrunlog zID

Other scripts

Scripts can be added to the class account bin directory $HOME/bin. To run them

9999 filename
replacing 9999 with the course code and filename with the name of the script

-  ⇤ ← Revision 3 as of 2013-01-24 15:08:51 → 
  Size: 3471
  Editor: MeichengWhale
  Comment:
+   ← Revision 4 as of 2013-01-25 06:20:21 → ⇥
  Size: 3384
  Editor: MeichengWhale
  Comment:
-Deletions are marked like this.
+Additions are marked like this.
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- * '''classrun''' - command for students and tutors to access a course's give and sms